


Freshet

by Enda



Category: A Stranger to Command - Sherwood Smith, Crown Duel - Sherwood Smith
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 13:49:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12913209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enda/pseuds/Enda
Summary: **Majorly edited! My first draft was more of an outline than anything. I tripled the length and added in some more scenes.**What was it Russav had said when Vidanric had first returned from Colend?They’d been talking about Tamara, and Elenet, and how in Colend he had learned to inure himself against beauty, like poison… And Vidanric spouted off something or other about how he’d not fall in love again, he had to focus on the country, he didn’t even want to marry…Your Marlovens ruined you, Russav said. Added some joke about how a strapping female warrior would come to court, and he’d fall at her boots. He even made a wager on it, didn’t he? Though Vidanric would hardly remind him of that now.





	Freshet

Vidanric stood on a balcony on the tallest tower of Castle Tlanth, and looked up at the moon. He couldn’t sleep. He had heard the distant strains of strange music and walked up here, chasing the edge of the melody. It never resolved into anything definite—just tickled at the edges of his hearing. But the scene had arrested him, here on the balcony, the jagged darkness of the mountains, the sky bristling with stars.

And so here he stood, staring up at the moon, the world’s most cliché lovesick fool.

Part of him knew, or guessed, that Meliara Astiar was somewhere out there in the woods. He knew she would hate him spying on her, and he wasn’t _really_ spying on her—but he’d always had this awareness of her, ever since they met, that only grew stronger with time.

*

The calvacade in Thoresk. Riding by the citizenry, at the head of the Renselaeus soldiers. Something tugged at him, and he turned his head—and met those blue, blue eyes.

With the instinct of long practice, he stilled his face, even as his heart seemed to jump into his throat. And forced himself to keep scanning past her, as if bored. His heart continued to race as he rapidly recalculated his plan to capture her before Debegri did.

Even as he rode on, he saw her, as if she were standing right before him. She’d been wearing a kerchief. A pretty dress. That impossible hue of hair hidden. Her face had been clean. Her features weren’t sharp, exactly, but after seeing her covered in dirt, it rather had the effect that a polishing rag had on dusty glass. The sudden clarity of her coloring, the line of her brows…

She made him laugh, that horrible journey to the capital. When was the last time he had laughed? And—was he misremembering?—she had even grinned once or twice during their verbal sparring, despite herself. What kind of person grinned when they were being carried off by the Enemy, one foot savaged by a vicious trap, about to be tried as a criminal before a ruthless king? He knew it wasn’t because she liked him; her loathing of him and all he represented was honest. He wanted to call it bravery but it was something more quicksilver than that. He wanted to find a word for it. He wanted to know her, beyond the war. He felt _something_ , friendship, kinship. Was it because their mothers had been like sisters? And Meliara Astiar could have been a sister to him, if her father had heeded his mother’s request to adopt her?

Another memory: the anger on her face, the courage in every inch of her upright posture, as she stood before the king. It had twisted something inside of him, made the thought of her execution not only morally reprehensible but personally unbearable. And now, if Debegri found her first...

As he gave orders to search the area around Thoresk, his voice was sharper than usual. Captain Nessaren looked at him from aback her horse, a quirk in her dark brows.

“My lord, are you…”

He just shook his head. She opened her mouth, thought better of it, bowed her head, and kneed her horse into a gallop.

*

Several days later. Late into the night, staring up at the darkness inside his tent.

Friendship, he had told himself... Like the sister he never had, he had thought.

Oh, how Russav would laugh.

He allowed himself few luxuries, in his double life the past few years. And one of those luxuries was the luxury to turn a blind eye to his own motivations. As he lay there in his tent, he ran through his plan to ally with the Astiars, dissecting it from every angle. He knew his parents approved, on both a personal and political level. Their partisanship would be useful, particularly as a symbol for the common people. On the other hand, it might have the opposite effect on Galdran’s allies, who were really the people he’d have to deal with eventually, if their plan to depose the king succeeded. And though the Astiars’ ideals were admirable, he foresaw trouble weaving their gallant visions of rebellion in with his family’s careful plans.

That is, if he managed to get them on board in the first place.

Some cold, ruthless part of him knew that if the Astiars were executed, it would stir the nobles into taking a more direct role against the king.

But success, at that cost, would hardly be worth it. As surely as he felt that as a moral conviction, he also felt it as a personal one. If he became king over the lifeless body of Meliara Astiar, he’d rather be dead himself.

The fervency of that last thought—he felt it in his whole body. He turned to his side, whacking the pad that served as his pillow into a more comfortable shape. He couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking of _her_.

This was ridiculous.

No, Vidanric did not allow himself to lie to himself about why, above all political necessity, he wanted to ally with the Astiars. He wanted to bring Meliara under his protection. And he wanted to bring her under his protection, well, because...

The trees rustled in the wind, beyond the thin fabric of his tent. He stared sightlessly into the darkness, and went over exactly what he would tell Tlanth tomorrow, at Whitestream bridge. He knew Meliara was with his Riders, a few days from the safety of Renselaeus. He wondered if she, as he suspected, felt like a prisoner. He wanted to see her, to explain everything. But he needed her brother for that. And, so, tomorrow. They would make sure to take a small group, as unthreatening as possible, give them every opportunity to retreat, so they wouldn’t feel it as a trap…

As the night lightened into dawn, he passed into a brief, fitful sleep. And dreamt of Meliara before the king, except for this time, she was crumpled on the ground, those blue eyes unseeing, her face white and still with death, as Galdran and the court laughed, and laughed...

*

Vidanric rubbed his face with his hands and wrapped himself more securely in his cloak, trying to get rid of the nasty feeling in his gut he got whenever he thought of those days. It was a year later. He was here, in Tlanth, and those old troubles were behind him.

Leaving him with new troubles that were, in many ways, altogether more tangled.

Though ostensibly the purpose of visiting Tlanth was to rest and get some mountain air, he’d been in the habit of staying up late, reading through missives, apportioning coin and soldiers and dealing with whatever squabble had come up in the chaos of restructuring. And some nights, he’d be working at his papers, and get this prickle on the back of his neck. He’d look out of his window. And there _She_ was, a little figure darting through the courtyard, soon lost in the black tangle of the forest. Sometimes, he’d even be up late enough to see her return. Once, after a furious inner debate, he had wandered down, heart thundering, a ready excuse on his lips about wanting to find the kitchens for a bite to eat. But the hallways were empty, the only hint of her passage the smell of an extinguished candle in the entry and a pair of muddy mocs by the door.

Tonight was their last night in Tlanth. He knew she must be saying goodbye, in her own wild way.

How many times had he fantasized on the ride up to Tlanth, conversing with her again, explaining himself, apologizing for last year’s misunderstandings? He should have known she’d barely look at him. Even she didn’t quite understand why she still resented him. _I don’t know,_  she had said, and the wretched confusion in her voice had been true.

*

As for him, he couldn’t understand why he harbored this tenderness for her.

Though in some ways, he supposed it was obvious.

What was it Russav had said when Vidanric had first returned from Colend?

They’d been talking about Tamara, and Elenet, and how in Colend he had learned to inure himself against beauty, like poison… And Vidanric spouted off something or other about how he’d not fall in love again, he had to focus on the country, he didn’t even want to marry…

 _Your Marlovens ruined you_ , Russav said. Added some joke about how strapping female warrior would come to court, and he’d fall at her boots. He even made a wager on it, didn’t he? Though Vidanric would hardly remind him of that now.

Because though Meliara Astiar wasn’t tall, or a skilled fighter, the spirit of Russav’s remark had proved true.

*

“...and we were all terrified, half of us ready to throw down our swords—or throw _ourselves_ on our swords—but then Mel comes up with this idea to play pranks on Debegri and his soldiers, kid stuff almost, like changing road signs, throwing rocks at their tents, stealing their horses,” Branaric was saying, to the rapt attention of his small audience.

Well, rapt except for one. Vidanric slid a glance towards Tamara, who was waving her fan, staring into the distance, affecting boredom. It would have been convincing, had her mouth not been thin with annoyance.

Renna raised her eyebrows, spreading her fan in Opposite Of Envy, exchanging glances with their circle, which included Russav, Nee, Trishe, and Deric. “He would _not_ have liked that,” she said in a low, fervent voice.

They were at an informal gathering, one of many that had begun springing up in the evenings, as people realized that Vidanric wouldn’t hold them to the same strict schedule as Galdran had. The young people were gathered in the garden, the older set nearer to the ballroom, sipping bluewine and nibbling at small plates.

Shakes of the head greeted Renna’s comment, as everyone except for Branaric remembered exactly what Debegri had done to those who humiliated him.

Branaric, oblivious to the bad memories from Before that had abruptly sunk the mood, kept along with his story: “So then, one day, we flood their whole campsite, and Debegri’s huge tent collapses and everyone’s running about clucking like chickens in a coop! Mel gets the idea to use the itchwort they saved for just this kind of moment—”

Nee’s eyes went wide. “She didn’t!”

Vidanric saw it clearly in his mind: Meliara, her face alight with suppressed laughter, crawling to Debegri’s tent, and emptying itchwort all over it, dusting her hands emphatically with a _good riddance!_ He could even hear the hoot she’d give as soon as she was back in safety.

Overlaid over this imagined scene: The memory, sudden and vivid, of a boy’s defiant face… Vidanric and the other rads, at one of those war games, catching that scrub—what was his name again? Tevred...Tevan...Tevac! When he and the rads caught Tevac and his friend mid-sting with handfuls of what in Marloven was called itch weed…

“Ohhh, but she did,” Branaric said, grinning.

“I’d have liked to see that,” Deric murmured to Russav, who fluttered his fan in the mode of Heartfelt Agreement.

“Well, did it work? _Please_ tell me he squirmed in the saddle for days afterwards,” Trishe said.

Bran chuckled. “Well, we don’t know for sure if it got him—but he didn’t come out of his tent for five days!”

At that, they all laughed.

*

Vidanric, after that conversation, had a new angle to ponder: That of Meliara at the academy. He marveled at how she kept making him remember parts of himself that he thought he had lost. And how he kept trying to insert her into his past, imagining the friendship they could have shared in any other circumstance.

The academy… Fenis.

To compare them wouldn’t do justice to either women. But there was something of the scruffiness, the fierceness… _A nostalgic value for bluntness_ , he’d said to his father. Besides that (and their unpredictability) (and the fact they both called him Shevraeth), Meliara and Fenis were hardly alike. Meliara was naive in so many ways; Fenis had been experienced, confident. She took charge, she set the boundaries, with the impersonal callousness of someone who knew she had the upper hand. As Vidanric got older, he faulted her for that less and less.

By the time he saw Senrid in Colend, and worked up the nerve to ask about Fenis, it hadn’t stung nearly as much as he thought it would. The Marloven king had said, looking levelly into Vidanric’s eyes: _No, she didn’t give me a message for you. Do you have one for her?_

He had just smiled, and shook his head. He grieved, oh yes, but it was the grief of realizing how much one loses to time. 

The specific ache of heartsickness had been replaced by the more general ache of nostalgia. His time in Marloven Hess was the time when he became a man, when he learned to question everything he’d grown up with.

Meliara reminded him of that time, partly because he could envision her cooking up stings with the Tevac and the other scrubs—but mostly because she was going through those changes right now. Beneath her prickliness, she was a young woman whose world and its ideals had been turned upside down. Instead of becoming closed off, or stubbornly sticking to her past views, she earnestly searching for new ground, for a new definition of right and wrong.

Vidanric felt, in many ways, he’d been forced to stop that quest. To take on the mantle of bettering the kingdom, which had been less about philosophy most days and more about putting one foot in front of the other and praying that Galdran didn’t notice. Or nowadays, going through the paperwork of government, which was mostly balancing ledgers as opposed to making any grand advances towards his ideals.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. He lived out his ideals every day, and ideals were of course lived out through ledgerbooks.

Still. He used to burn like Meliara with those same questions about civilization, and society, and justice. His parents had showed him a way forward through that impossible tangle, and he agreed with their vision. But had he ever really decided the course of actions for himself? The way Meliara had so bravely flung herself into the revolution she’d wanted to see? In comparison, his actions felt more like inertia, the result of long preparation, rather than any kind of inspired vision for what the country should be. Perhaps it was the wisdom of getting older; it was better to be construct a moral code like a building plan for a house, and follow it, rather than relying on the gut-felt passions of youth, which changed each week.

And yet, she made him question it all, the careful deliberation with which he and his parents had conducted the direction of his life.

If only her disruption of his equilibrium existed merely on a political level. No, as he reminded himself very day, the thunderstorm that was Meliara smashed him apart more comprehensively than that.

He only had to think of their most recent conversation. _Can you tell me why you seem still to harbor your original resentment against me?_

Her miserable profile. So different than the one that he’d seen the previous evening, as Nee played one of her songs on the harp, and the other three sat down for hot chocolate. The way Meliara stared… He thought he’d never forget it. Her body tense, intent, as if the music was a wild animal in a clearing she was trying not to scare away. Her eyes wide, her fingers clenched in her lap, the way she looked like she might both weep and laugh at once. He saw longing, and grief, and fervent appreciation of beauty. When it was over, she ignored what she’d surely been learning about court decorum and clapped so hard her palms turned red. Vidanric would never allow himself to show that sort of emotion, and seeing her express it so nakedly—it felt like intimacy, and he burned again, to imagine what it would be like to share her confidences, for her words to overflow again as they had once, at dinner…

He was several years older than Meliara, but his emotional adolescence had been frozen, there at the academy when he’d seen Fenis and Forthan stare at one another from across the practice field. And later, when they’d had that horrible conversation in the garden, and he waited till he got back to the academy to weep. The scenes were distant, but not healed. They were never incorporated into the rest of his life. Like leaves perfectly preserved in the ice of a lake. He’d frozen them on purpose, to deal with at a later date—or never. Which was what he meant when he returned from Colend, and told Russav that perhaps he would never marry.

She pulled at him, heated those iced-over emotions. And it wasn’t a gentle melting. More like when the rivers flooded with snowmelt, and roared down the mountain passes. She made him feel a child again, with all its fierce joys and sorrows and humiliations.

Well, good that it was spring then. Everything was thawing. The world was changing, as it always did. The thought was bracing.

He gave one last glance to the moon, to the woods where he imagined her wandering, took a deep breath of the end-of-winter air.

They had a long ride tomorrow; he’d best get some sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> If you remember from the book, Mel sees him that night, a distant figure on the tallest tower...
> 
> Reread a bunch of Sherwood Smith's books recently, including A Stranger To Command and Crown Duel. It's funny, because my first foray into fic was because of Crown Duel, when I was a kid in 2006, and I haven't written any fics in that world since those days. I regret that I deleted all of them as a late teen, without bothering to properly save everything. Ah well. (Anyone haunt FF.net back then too? My screenname was Icelands, if you happen to remember. I'm sure I'd remember a few of those old names.)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this little snippet, even though it's heavy on summary. I wanted to deal with some of my thoughts about Vidanric in Stranger vs. Vidanric in Crown Duel.


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